A Peter Dubovský liked jazz, that order of disobedience. When it was not Louis Armstrong's trumpet , the pinching of an instrumental theme or the subtle thunder of Frank Sinatra sounded in his head .

You play as you listen.

Sinatra, the voice. Dubovsky, the left-handed.

He died 20 years ago this Tuesday.

His name was Petr Dubovsky, he was Slovak , he was 28 years old and he had played two seasons without too many neons at Real Madrid , but in Asturias we did not forget the five he spent at Real Oviedo . Until that morning at Ko Samui Falls in Thailand ...

"We were on vacation and it wasn't a very good day. So instead of going to the beach we decided to go sightseeing to see the island and went to see some waterfalls. Petr was taking a picture of the landscape, he slipped and fell. He was conscious and He was talking to us. His pelvic area hurt, but we never suspected that the blow to the head was an internal hemorrhage that was going to end his life a few hours later. "

Aurelia Caraba , the bride who took a year and a half to realize what happened, tells me on the eve of the anniversary , a year and a half of blank silence.

Or in blue.

Today Aurelia is a reconstructed woman, with a happy couple and daughter in Oviedo, a job at a multinational IT company near the Las Caldas spa and an unusual Asturian / Slovak accent that sums it up.

All the goals, assists and reports from that kid from Bratislava's Slovan had quickly convinced Ramón Mendoza's Madrid in 1993. So almost overnight, Petr and Aurelia arrived in Spain without a word of Spanish in the suitcase and with an English that was not abundant in this Kingdom. It was Laudrup's Madrid and Quinta del Buitre , a good sign. But also that of Zamorano or Amavisca , bad competition. And, above all, it was the Madrid of the Bernabéu , that stadium of pragmatism and sweating, that audience of thumbs down.

One day I asked Ángel Cappa how it was possible for a guy like Dubovsky not to be the head of a philosophy like Jorge Valdano's . "If Sunday's game was at home, Dubovsky always lived that week the same. After training on Monday, Jorge and I would say: 'On Sunday, Petr and 10 more.' On Tuesday everything was going well. On Wednesday we noticed something. Thursday we no longer saw it so clearly. On Friday, things turned more and Saturday did not enter the call. It was pure quality, but I could not with the Bernabéu. "

We were dealing with a player of instinct but not a predator, a link of ingenuity between creation and the trigger that, sometimes, failed. Irregular talent. Sin in Chamartín.

In the summer of 1995, Dubovsky traded the Bernabéu for the Tartiere . Aurelia had respect for the climate and the food of Asturias, but the couple soon became both. In Oviedo Dubovsky was fond of fish. And to the night fabada when it was not in competition time. A stew for dinner? Asked the uninitiated ...

Does not matter. She could have eaten stew and pot all the eve of her matches at Real Oviedo. Because, with his mistakes in the backpack, Petr Dubovsky found in that shirt what that shirt was looking for so many years in someone like him. The Tartiere was reached by an elegant driving player, pass the gap, pause or race on demand and fierce horizontal trip shot to the ground. In case someone, also, wants numbers, his were mythical assists, like the one he gave Losada among a crowd of defenses from Atlético de Madrid to avoid the oviedista descent and that sent the rojiblancos to Segunda. And theirs were goals from the thumb up, such as a shot against Extremadura or a left-footed shot against Rayo Vallecano that ensured the permanence of Real Oviedo in the First Division.

It is true that he lost some balls. And that? Soccer is full of recruits that are never wrong and that we will always forget.

With him there was never a runaway race in search of a ball that was knowingly impossible, nor a kiss to the shield looking at the stands with chest blows, nor arms like blades haranguing the people to know what tricks to perpetrate. His allergy to demagoguery and cheap tribune cost him a reputation for indolence in a sector of the hobby. Aurelia, his girlfriend from the age of 17, his life partner, house and interrupted future in Oviedo, tells something that helps the truth. "He was very self-demanding. He would record the games and watch them repeated over and over again to analyze their mistakes. Sometimes he would watch them with his father and his brothers and they would stop the video play by play. If the game had gone wrong, he would not sleep. And the whistles affected him a lot. Sometimes he understood them and sometimes he wondered what he had done wrong. But, fortunately, there was much more applause. As there is still today. "

Dubovsky was an introvert. But if you pierced his skin, you found a warm and legal guy. "It took time to make friends, but once made, there were no limits," says Aurelia.

He looked like a man at peace.

And an armistice footballer.

A creator who had the ball glued to his foot was a feast for the butchers, who pulled scythes when the one with the mane tousled. I remember the first leg of the Promotion against Las Palmas . Dubovsky invented football that night, amassed all of the 3-0 goals, and received massive destruction of kicks, grabs, and punches that he endured without fuss.

It is played as it is.

Two years later, in Vallecas, he shot the left foot from the border of the area so that the ball entered directly into the team's salvation. Real Oviedo, one more year in First Division.

He had a month and a half to die.

"In the fall from the waterfall, he was left in an area with very difficult access. The helicopter could not land because there were many trees and the ambulance could not reach it either. The doctors had to walk a distance to reach it. It took five hours to arrive. Then they put him on a stretcher as best they could and took him to the hospital, and that's where they certified his death. "

When Aurelia returned to Oviedo, she found a purchase receipt for La Perla jewelry among her boyfriend's things . It corresponded to a ring that Petr had bought her to ask for her marriage.

"Did you get to see the ring, Aurelia?"

-Yes. I have it and I will always keep it.

Aurelia, love.

Sinatra, the voice.

Dubovsky, a warm soccer and jazz left foot.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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